David Marcus

David Marcus

@davidmarcus.bsky.social

Literary Editor @TheNation. Working on a history of socialism in the United States. Essays and more: http://linktr.ee/davidimarcus

4.7K followers416 following39 posts

David Marcus
@davidmarcus.bsky.social

“What started out as a straight documentary turns into an almost absurd, almost distasteful experiment, and an argument that the only real way to know something is not through hours of faithful recording but through an elaborate artifice.” @lauramarsh.bsky.social newrepublic.com/article/2167...

newrepublic.comYou Can See Everything Is Unexpectedly HeartbreakingWithout making excuses for the Theranos fraud, Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim’s documentary insists on Elizabeth Holmes’s humanity.
David Marcus
@davidmarcus.bsky.social

"A hallmark of Lerner’s fiction is the very particular way that politics encroaches, or rather doesn’t, on the life of the protagonist: It is there as a backdrop, a marker of time and place but not much else." Tara Menon in @thenation.com's Spring Books www.thenation.com/article/cult...

thenation.comBen Lerner’s Novel of Fathers and SonsHis most experimental and unsettling book, Transcription as us whether art is futile or the most important weapon we have.

David Marcus reposted

Dan Sinykin
@dan-sinnamon.bsky.social

@kunktation.bsky.social is right "Something of the same redemptive delight in language [in Yeats] is also going on in Pynchon, whose characters don’t seem quite capable of misery so long as history affords them jokes to make, slang to sling, and songs to join" www.thenation.com/article/cult...

thenation.comThe Riotous Worlds of Thomas PynchonFrom “The Crying Lot of 49” to his latest noirs, the American novelist has always proceeded along a track strangely parallel to our own.

David Marcus reposted

Yangyang Cheng
@yangyangcheng.bsky.social

Amidst the fixation with semiconductors and geopolitics, how did Taiwan become a center of global electronics? Who were the people that powered its rise, and what happens when the tinkerer becomes the tycoon? I review Honghong Tinn's Island Tinkerers @thenation.com: www.thenation.com/article/worl...

thenation.comHow Taiwan Became the Chipmaker for the WorldA new book tells the story of the island-nation’s transformation into a central hub for technological development and manufacturing.

David Marcus reposted

Edna Bonhomme, PhD
@jacobinoire.bsky.social

Grateful to be a finalist for the Nona Balakian Award for @bookcritics.bsky.social. This would not be possible without the commissions from my editors at @thenation.com @davidmarcus.bsky.social & @newrepublic.com. Congrats to Rhoda Feng (the winner) & the other finalists. www.bookcritics.org/awards/

bookcritics.orgThe National Book Critics Circle Awards - National Book Critics CircleEach year, the National Book Critics Circle presents awards for the finest books published in English in six categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Biography, Autobiography, Poetry, and Criticism. In additi...

David Marcus reposted

Jeet Heer
@jeetheer.bsky.social

Replying to @jeetheer.bsky.social

5. Over at The Nation, I write about Buckley's politics of friendship, how he creating a chummy world of insiders & those excluded from the club. I raise the question: sure, Buckley was fun company but would you want to marry one of his sisters? www.thenation.com/article/cult...

thenation.comWilliam F. Buckley Jr.’s Friends and EnemiesWhat was it about Buckley that made him so attractive to liberals—and what was it about liberals that caused them to be attracted to conservative figures like Buckley in the first place?

David Marcus reposted

David Klion
@davidklion.bsky.social

Thrilled to be nominated! Thanks to my brilliant editor @davidmarcus.bsky.social, who commissioned me as well as another finalist, and who has made The Nation's @booksandthearts.bsky.social section such a vital space for book criticism.

Washington Monthly@washingtonmonthly.bsky.social

The Washington Monthly proudly announces the finalists of the 2025 Kukula Award for Excellence in Nonfiction Book Reviewing:

washingtonmonthly.comThe Washington Monthly Announces Finalists for 2025 Kukula Award Book Review Prize    | Washington MonthlyKukula Award book review prize honors exemplary nonfiction book reviewing that elucidates key issues of our times.

David Marcus reposted

Dan Sinykin
@dan-sinnamon.bsky.social

I wrote about close reading. What it is, why it matters, and what John Guillory gets right and wrong in his recent On Close Reading. Offers a sneak peek of a little of what @johannawinant.bsky.social and I are up to in our forthcoming Close Reading for the 21C www.thenation.com/article/soci...

thenation.comWhat is Close Reading?By transforming quotations into evidence, close reading served as way to transform postwar criticism into a specialized knowledge. But what if we treated it more as an art form?

David Marcus reposted

Seven Stories Press
@sevenstories.bsky.social

Not a drill: *THE VIVIAN GORNICK* reviewed our new book “Going Around: Selected Journalism” by Murray Kempton, edited by Andrew Holter, for @thenation.com

The Nation's Books & the Arts@booksandthearts.bsky.social

Vivian Gornick in Spring Books on the many lives of Murray Kempton @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/cult...

thenation.comThe Rebellions of Murray KemptonOne of his generation’s most prolific journalists, Kempton never turned a blind eye to the inequalities all around him.

David Marcus reposted

Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò
@olufemiotaiwo.bsky.social

"The very first line of Open Socrates admonishes the reader, “There is a question you are avoiding.” For Callard, that question is: Why are you living this way? But this only points to a host of questions that Callard herself avoids..." me for @thenation.com www.thenation.com/article/cult...

thenation.comAgnes Callard and the Examined LifeIn her new book, Callard makes the case that we should all live more philosophically but where does politics fit in?
David Marcus
@davidmarcus.bsky.social

"I write for the future / because my present is demolished. / I fly to the future / to retrieve my demolished present / as a legible past." Even in their silence, these poems call us to act. Hussein Omar in Books and the Arts @thenation.com on Fady Joudah www.thenation.com/article/cult...

thenation.comFady Joudah’s Poetry of DislocationIn his new volume of poetry, […], the poet, translator, and ER doctor explores Palestinians’ experiences of exile and displacement as well as the difficulties of healing amid the protracted and ongoin...
David Marcus
@davidmarcus.bsky.social

"The Brutalist provides its audience with a window onto a side of architecture that is always lurking in the shadows: who makes it, and for whom." The always great @katewagner.bsky.social in @BooksandtheArts on why The Brutalist might be the best film of the year www.thenation.com/article/cult...

thenation.comThe Brutalist and the Hidden Work of ArchitectureA film about survival, creativity, the hypocrisies of high art, The Brutalist tells a story about an architect who does not exploit and manipulate others to achieve his grand vision of the world but i...
David Marcus
@davidmarcus.bsky.social

Kim Phillips-Fein in latest @BooksandtheArts on the incredible David Montgomery--his early radicalization, his years as a UE worker, his time in the CP, and his histories of work and the vital message they still impart www.thenation.com/article/soci...

thenation.comDavid Montgomery and the Vitality of Labor HistoryFrom his first book to his landmark account of the politics of the pre-WWI labor movement, Montgomery explored how people’s experiences of work shaped their political horizons.